


Make Me Not Alone

by bazinga01



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2021-01-20 17:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21285557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazinga01/pseuds/bazinga01
Summary: Quinn doesn't understand how her life got to this point and she's too exhausted to try to make it better anymore. Rachel finds her at a particularly vulnerable moment after school hours. Up through episode 3x04.
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Kudos: 28





	Make Me Not Alone

Have you ever had one of those moments when you just don't even feel like you're in your own body, where you feel outside of yourself because this just _can't_ be where your life has brought you?

How did I get here? When did everything spiral so completely out of control? I used to get by, you know. I never would have called myself happy by any means. Never actually _happy_. But I always felt like I could drift through the days in that in-between state of melancholy. I could handle not being happy, as long as I didn't have to feel so overwhelmingly sad.

Melancholy is perfectly acceptable. As long as everyone else continues to envy you, as long as _they_ think that you live a fulfilling life. That's all that's ever mattered really. And can you blame me, when I grew up in the household that I did? Appearances are everything.

_You're like a princess, darling._

_The boys are going to be falling head over heels for you soon, honey. You're going to make some man a very happy husband someday._

_Father Eric says it's been quite some time since he's seen such pure and elegant young woman like yourself._

_I wish I could be popular like you. How does it feel to know you're at the top, Quinn?_

I thought the most vulnerable and lonely moment of my life would be when I sat on the bathroom floor and tried to wish away that little plus sign on the plastic stick. Surely it couldn't get any worse than that.

I never stopped thinking about her, you know. My daughter. Ever since that day in the hospital when I released her to a better life, I feel like a part of me has gone missing. I didn't have the desire to be a mother at this age. I still don't. That's not why I miss her.

I miss her because she is the only perfect thing I ever made. She's the one perfection to arise out of seventeen years of failure. Do you know what it's like to have your perfect thing look at you with absolute love and trust? I do. I could faintly feel her heartbeat when they laid her on my chest and I looked into those bright innocent eyes.

She didn't know how damaged I am. I could have been good enough for this one human being, because no one had warned her yet that I wouldn't be. Except I couldn't be good enough. Not really. Good enough would mean being able to give this perfect thing the life that she deserved. I wanted to _so bad_, but I knew that I never could.

I don't think Puck ever fully understood that. And I don't think he ever forgave me for letting her go either.

I guess that's why he's so desperately clinging at this second chance, now that Shelby is back. He can see her and hold her and love her. He can prove himself as a father figure.

She's my perfect thing. She's my perfect thing that never got to be mine. I forfeited the right to hear an innocent voice coo _mommy_ in my ear every day. I don't deserve to cry about it. I gave up the right. I made the choice.

I thought that if I changed myself enough, that I could stop feeling this way. I could change my appearance so drastically that I would prove to everyone that it didn't _matter_ that nobody truly cares about me and it didn't _matter_ that Shelby had reappeared in my life uninvited.

Appearance is everything. It's the only thing that's ever really mattered. So if I changed myself enough, things would _have_ to get better. Right?

As it turns out, there isn't enough pink hair dye in the world to make this misery go away.

There's a part of me who recognizes that I shouldn't have to feel like this. But the rest of me has just given up.

I don't recognize myself anymore. I'm starting to wonder if I ever really recognized myself in the first place.

I step in front of the mirror in the girl's bathroom. Everyone's left campus by now, so I allow myself to really take a good look at myself.

I'm back to the blonde hair and the sundresses, but anyone who really looked me in the eye would see that I'm such a fucking mess.

It's in this moment that I feel detached from my body. Separate. I don't understand how this is me.

I don't understand who _me_ is anymore.

Maybe this surreal moment of detachment is why it takes me a moment to realize that I'm crying. I'm crying and I'm too exhausted to even attempt to stop.

Who is this pitiful blonde girl who lost everything, who has no one to love her? When did she become me?

It's a moment too late before I realize that someone else has entered the bathroom.

"Oh hello, Quinn. I didn't expect to see- What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

God must hate me. I mean, _really_ hate me. Of all the people to find me like this, it has to be Rachel freaking Berry. Of course.

I hastily wipe at my eyes, but it's useless. My cheeks are stained with tear tracks.

"Nothing, Berry. Just mind your own business and get out of here." Maybe if I keep my back turned to her, so that she can only see me through the mirror, I can hang on to some scrap of dignity until she leaves the room.

For a moment it looks like she's actually going to listen for once, and I allow myself to exhale. But then her step falters, and she turns back to me. I see her ridiculous knee socks reflected in the mirror as I stand hunched over the sink.

"Quinn…" She breathes my name out, barely above a whisper. I can't believe that she's actually been rendered speechless. She refuses to leave me in peace, but she can't think of a single thing to say.

I accidentally catch her gaze in the mirror and immediately squeeze my eyes shut. "Just leave me alone! _Please_." I silently curse my cracking voice for betraying me even further.

"Isn't that the problem though?" she questions so softly I almost wonder if I imagined it.

"_Is what?_" my voice hisses back.

"That everyone keeps leaving you alone." She pauses for a moment, and I wonder if she's going to continue. "I…I'll leave if you want me to, Quinn. But you don't have to be alone. Not if you don't want to be."

A sob chokes out of my lungs before I can trap it between my lips. Why can't she just be like the others? Why does she always have to destroy any semblance of control that I manage to build? Why does she always have to be the one who _sees_ me?

I'm stuck at a standstill. I can't act like I'm okay. But I can't admit that I need someone. Not to anyone, and _especially_ not to Rachel.

Somehow she interprets my mental freeze as an invitation. Before I have any time to process what is happening, she's placed her hand on my shoulder and gently spun me around to face her.

And then the only thing I can comprehend is that Rachel has one arm wrapped tightly around my waist, and her other hand has weaved its way through my hair and guided my head to the juncture between her neck and shoulder.

In my head, I shove her off of me. In my mind, my gaze turns to steel and a derogatory insult rips from my throat before I stride purposefully out of the bathroom. In my thoughts, I don't give in.

In reality, my arms snap up of their own accord and grip onto Rachel like she's my lifeline.

Maybe it's because she is.

My arms are wrapped around her tiny frame and pulling us together until not a millimeter of distance remains between us. I feel her everywhere, and I silently pray that her warmth and comfort and love will just swallow me whole and help me disappear.

"I've got you Quinn, I've got you. You're not alone. I've got you," she murmurs into my hair as she pulls me impossibly closer.

I don't know how she knows just how lost I am, just how alone I feel. But she knows. Somehow she knows. So she continues to whisper comforts against my cheek and keep her arm wrapped tightly around my waist as her other hand strokes through my hair.

In that moment, I realize that I've lost. I've revealed myself to the one person I vowed to always remain hidden from, and now she's holding me as if I'm as breakable as I feel like I am.

I've already lost. So I just give in.

I inhale the scent of her neck that is pressed against my nose, and she smells like vanilla and honey and warmth. Everything about her is warm. Her scent, her soothing voice that cascades over me in waves, and her body wrapped tightly around mine.

Rachel Berry is warmth and she feels like home. Not the cold household that I grew up in, but _home_. That unattainable place where my whole body just feels comfort and peace and contentment.

Maybe it's because I can't recall if I've been held like this since I was a small child, or maybe it's just because I'm finally being held by Rachel.

If I had more energy, I'd never admit that, even in my own thoughts. That I've dreamt of being held by her. That I've wondered if I'd ever get the chance to feel this in my lifetime.

I'll probably always be a little lonely, but maybe I won't have to be alone anymore. I'm pathetically broken.

But maybe she's the one who's capable of putting me back together.


End file.
